VINTAGE HALLOWEEN TRICK-OR-TREAT BAGS PT. 3
It’s a pleasant September Friday afternoon as I’m watching The Adventures of Pete and Pete “Halloweenie” and curling up with this rad green fuzzy blanket I bought from Walmart however long ago that I just recently decided to open… what better way to push the vibes than check out another batch of 5 random vintage Halloween trick-or-treat bags for your spooky viewing pleasure!
THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS 1996
Starting off strong with this little guy from the mid 90s. It’s not quite as big as the others, but what it lacks in size it gains in green ghosts and evil marshmallows.
It’s a strange size, leading me to believe this was an oversized treat bag for a birthday party. And because I’m lazy, I didn’t bother doing much more research into it.
I’m not sure exactly what Stay Puft is doing. Perhaps dancing horribly? Whatever it is, Slimer seems to be experiencing enough secondhand embarrassment for all of us.
DURACELL FRANKENSTEIN 1984
Something I noticed while collecting these trick-or-treat bags… companies really were concerned we wouldn’t make it out alive on Halloween night. Take this Duracell bag for instance.
First, can we talk about Frank for a second? Look at this bashful son of a bitch. He looks like you just called him cute and he doesn't know how to handle the compliment. Like “oh, stop it, you!”
Anyway, while Frank works through these new and confusing feelings, the safety bullets are pretty classic: use sidewalks, don’t eat uninspected candy, wear bright reflective colors, etc… It’s wild because, as a kid, I know for a fact none of these rules were followed. We were basically thrown out into the wild with a mask on we could barely see out of and told to be home eventually.
Perhaps the biggest thing here, Duracell isn’t just wishing you a safe Halloween, they’re inviting you to carry one of their very own Durabeam flashlights (with the use of their dependable batteries of course) for the journey. How thoughtful—Halloween safety just happened to be very good for the battery business.
PEPSI FRANKENSTEIN
Okay… THIS is my shit right here! We got the Pepsi Frito Lay Frankenstein joint from, I’m assuming, the early 90s. Chef’s kiss, absolute chef’s kiss.
Green Frank with a blue blazer and yellow undershirt being juiced up by jumper cables. The artwork takes up damn near the entire bag! The yellow and red electricity against that purple background… breathtaking! This is what the absolute best dreams are made of.
I've talked plenty around here about my love for the old Pepsi/Frito Lay Universal Monsters stuff, and this is exactly why. They could've slapped Frankenstein next to a Pepsi logo and called it a day, but instead somebody decided Frank needed a blue blazer, jumper cables and enough electricity shooting through him to power a small Pennsylvania borough. It’s a plastic bag meant for kids to collect Snickers bars—I would frame it.
D.L. CLARK CO SAFETY COMMITTEE
Confession… uhhhh, I’ve never had a Clark Bar. So, some shit about Clark Bars you didn’t ask to know: Clark Bars were invented in 1917 by an Irish immigrant named David L. Clark in Pittsburgh, Pa. The candy gained massive popularity as a ration for the U.S. Army during WWI and WWII with production reaching 1.5 million bars a day during WWII. It was the first American combo bar to achieve nationwide success (it combines chocolate and peanut butter). All that to say, while I can’t speak for the candy itself, this fucking bag rocks!
I have no idea what year this bag was produced but that matters the least bit. A very “grandma” looking witch with her owl and cat companions with some classic jack-o-lanterns and a cauldron bubbling over a crackling fire. That’s the stuff right there. The color scheme makes it feel like those peanut butter soft candies with the orange and black wrappers the 70-somethings have stashed in a glass jar in the cupboard. You know the ones. No one actually buys them, they just appear in old peoples cupboards sometime in October. Just lovely.
LORI HEISER STATE REP.
Ending this batch on politics. That’s about as scary as it gets, folks.
Anyways, this is one that was found in the attic of my old house a few years ago, so it definitely came from around the area. After some quick research, turns out Lori was campaigning for PA state rep and was elected in 1980, making this bag quite a bit older than I anticipated.
So, I guess the star here is Lori herself, whose name and campaign slogan are slapped across the bottom. Nothing says Halloween quite like coming home with 14 fun-size candy bars and a subtle reminder of who your parents should vote for.
Lori aside, we got a whole group of trick-or-treaters posing with, judging by the size of the kids, their jumbo jack-o-lantern. I’m less interested in Lori’s platform and more interested in what the hell Pennsylvanians were feeding their pumpkins back in the 80’s. This thing is the size of two of the smaller children on the left and could easily crush several of them. Nobody seems particularly concerned about this.
LINGERING THOUGHTS/CONCLUSION
How safe were we with Duracell on Halloween night? Safe. But not Energizer safe. They keep going and going and going.
Where do the black and orange wrapper candies come from if no one is buying them? They’ve always been there. DO NOT ask grandma about them.
How did that pumpkin get so big? There were 7 children in the picture originally.
Thanks for reading!